WASHINGTON — It has been almost six months — 176 days, to be exact (not that anyone’s counting) — since the Phillies played at home. But to Nick Castellanos, well, take it away, Nick.

“It feels like yesterday,” he said. “Really.”

Surely, you remember it. Or maybe you don’t. It was one of those games that tends to get lost to time because of what happened next. But make no mistake, it was a classic.

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Trailing one game to none in a best-of-five divisional round series that they eventually lost to the rival Mets, the Phillies rallied from 2-0 and 4-3 deficits only to fumble a 6-5 lead in the top of the ninth. One strike from extra innings, Castellanos came to the plate with the winning run on second base.

Earlier in the game, Castellanos got caught on camera muttering under his breath after the fans booed him for swinging at back-to-back low-and-away sliders. This time, he laid off a two-strike slider in the dirt, then banged a single to left field to kick off a walk-off celebration.

But here’s what made it all so unforgettable: Castellanos broke away from his delirious teammates and sprinted to the screen behind home plate, where his son, Liam, stood. They got nose-to-nose and shouted.

It was a forever father-son moment.

And it was the lasting image from the last game at Citizens Bank Park.

Until Monday, when the Phillies will return home at 3:05 p.m.

“I don’t really remember the day and the morning,” Castellanos said Sunday, with 11-year-old Liam sitting in his locker at Nationals Park. “But as far as the game, yeah, the game was pretty cool.”

With Aaron Nola on the mound here Sunday, the Phillies had the chance to come home having swept a season-opening three-game series on the road for only the fifth time in their 143-year history.

Instead, Nola gave up two homers, the Phillies went 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position, and the train would’ve left Union Station by the sixth inning if not for a bases-loaded, nobody-out threat in the ninth that only averted a shutout in a 5-1 loss to the Nationals.

Oh well. It happens.

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So, these Phillies won’t join their 2001, 1994, 1993, and 1905 antecedents in the history books. But taking two out of three, even from the second-division Nationals, reinforced some truths about the Phillies, notably that the starting pitching will keep them in almost every game and the quick-strike offense is dependent on homers and perhaps vulnerable to left-handed pitching.

There were some surprises, too, such as Castellanos drawing four walks in 13 plate appearances. A more disciplined approach or taking what the Nationals’ pitchers gave him?

“Pretty much just how it went this weekend,” he said.

No matter. A sellout crowd will show up in South Philly and cheer, as it should, when the players stand side by side on the first-base line before squaring off with the Rockies.

Because the Phillies have produced a reel of memorable moments since the Bank opened in 2004. Jimmy Rollins’ walk-off double in Game 4 of the 2009 NL Championship Series races to mind. Same with Bryce Harper’s pennant-clinching homer in 2022.

But over the last three seasons, in particular, they have the third-highest number of victories at home (150) of any team in baseball, trailing only the Dodgers (162) and Braves (153).

And that last game — “The walk-off game,” as Castellanos calls it — encapsulates the Philadelphia Baseball Experience.

“That was a really special game,” Kyle Schwarber said Sunday. “Just a back-and-forth battle. Ups and downs … and ups. The fans’ energy, it was all you could ask for. That’s why we’re looking forward to getting back home, having that energy on our side and having the fans be that extra man for us.”

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It isn’t always like that. There were seven or eight lean seasons in there between the Rollins/Utley years and the Harper era. But when the Phillies are good, the stakes get higher, the fans more demanding, and the drama more intense.

The players don’t take it for granted.

“I don’t think it gets old, you know?” said Schwarber, in the last year of a four-year, $79 million contract. “I feel like that’s the beauty of the game, the waves and the emotions. And when you have a fan base that’s in tune to the emotions and in tune to the game and they’re able to have it with you, I think that’s what just makes it even cooler. When you do have that really big moment, it just makes it even more special when there’s 45,000 behind you screaming, hollering, yelling.

“And that’s not even just in the postseason. That’s through the regular season, too. It makes those moments really special.”

The Phillies expected more of those moments last October. When they left town after Castellanos’ dramatics, they figured they would be back, either for a decisive Game 5 against the Mets or the NLCS.

Instead, the season ended in New York.

The sting from that early exit hasn’t fully subsided. Maybe it never will, especially if the Phillies don’t finally win it all with their existing core. Eventually, with the passage of time, Castellanos will look back on that moment with Liam and value it even more.

“We understand it,” Castellanos said, “but it’s hard to get an 11-year-old to reflect and appreciate it, you know?”

Maybe some of it will come flooding back when they step on the field Monday.